EXPLAINING
THE DESTRUCTION: Taliban leaders decided to destroy artwork
after a delegation visited and offered money to help protect
the giant Buddhas. "They said, `If you are destroying our future
with economic sanctions, you can't care about our heritage.'
And so they decided that these statues must be destroyed. The
Taliban's Supreme Court confirmed the edict.The
New York Times 03/19/01 (one-time
registration required for access)

EYE-WITNESS
PROOF: Taliban leaders say they may let journalists see
the destroyed remains of the giant Buddhas they destroyed as
early as Wednesday.The New York
Times 03/18/01(one-time registration
required for access)

UNDERSTANDING
THE TALIBAN: Difficult as it is for the rest of the world
to understand why the Taliban would destroy artifacts so old
and precious, a question arises: "In the deepest, broadest
sense, did the Taliban really have any idea what they were doing?
The movement's leaders are mostly young sons of illiterate peasants,
raised on mine-strewn battlefields and stark refugee camps,
and educated in rote sectarian blinders. Do they understand
that this act, more than anything else, will be how the world
remembers them?"The New York
Times 03/18/01(one-time registration
required for access)

THE
MOST DANGEROUS RELIGION (HINT: IT'S NOT ISLAM):
The world has watched in horror as Afghani fundamentalists willfully
destroyed cultural treasures. But destruction of art is only
a piece of a larger cultural battle going on here. Is
international cultural conflict replacing political Cold War
conflict?ArtsJournal.com
3/16/01

PROVOKING THE BULLIES: Most of the world has been
outraged over the Taliban's destruction of the giant Buddhas.
Now Pakistan's foreign minister urges other nations
not to shun the Taliban, fearing the regime will use international
hostility as an excuse to make life even more difficult
for the Afghan people. Pakistan is one of three countries that
offically acknowledges the Taliban regime. The Times
of India (AFP) 3/15/01

DUTY TO PROTECT:Destruction of Afghani
art certainly didn't begin with the Taliban's assault on the
giant Buddhas. The Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan's
Cultural Heritage (SPACH) has been fighting to save artwork in
Afghanistan since 1994 (without much luck). "Monuments were being neglected, if not badly damaged by the
war, historic sites had been and were still being illegally
excavated and, most importantly, the Kabul Museum, which houses
an important collection, was being damaged and plundered."Purabudaya 2000

ATTENTION
GETTER: The world is still trying to figure out why the
Taliban destroyed their art. Was it just to get attention for
a country the rest of the world has been ignoring? "For
Mullah Omar, who had spared the statues in the hope of improving
relations with the West, the increased pressure indicated he
had nothing left to lose. His response to the rest of the world:
If you want the monuments to survive, then recognize us as we
are." Newsweek (MSNBC) 03/13/01

ART
OR PEOPLE? Who can explain the Taliban's destruction of
art? "For example, why are they doing so? Was the destruction
of statues a stupid act, or was it a shrewdly calculated move
to attain international attention? Then, who created the Taliban?
And who is pushing them against the wall now? After the world's
reaction over the statue issue, many in Afghanistan might ask
whether the stone statues were more important than millions
of starving human beings."Middle
East Times 03/12/01

HOW
THEY KILLED THE BUDDHAS: "After failing to destroy
the 1,700-year-old sandstone statues of Buddha with anti-aircraft
and tank fire, the Taliban brought a lorryload of dynamite from
Kabul. A Western observer said: 'They drilled holes into the
torsos of the two statues and then placed dynamite charges inside
the holes to blow them up'."The
Telegraph (London) 03/12/01

SMUGGLED
OUT OF HARM'S WAY: A wave of art has been smuggled out
of Afghanistan and is being sold on the black market in London.
It's a trade that has been active for some time, but the Taliban
destruction has upped the stakes.The
Observer 03/11/01

BUDDHA
WAS RIGHT: So now the giant Bamiyan buddhas have been destroyed.
The Metropolitan Museum had offered to buy and transport the
statues to New York in order to preserve them "It's hard
to imagine a more perfect or succinct misunderstanding of the
issue. Absence is absence, no matter if the Buddhas become dust
in Afghanistan or dusted objets d'arts in some far away museum.
That this seemed, if briefly, a plausible solution indicates
what is truly at stake here, and that it is not so simple as
preserving 'the world's cultural heritage'."Killing the Buddha 03/08/01

STAY-AT-HOME
ART: "In recent years, the dispute over the right
to antiquities has tended to favor those who argue that art
treasures belong near their origins, rather than in collections
continents away." But the Taliban destruction has changed
some thinking on the issue. "Museums [in the West] are saying,
'We should have protected this material.' "Los
Angeles Times 03/10/01

WHY
OH WHY? So what is the religious justification for the Taliban's
destruction of the giant Buddhas? "The deed is being perpetrated
in the name of Islam, in which there is no basis for such vandalism.
Indeed, the Islamic world has admired the two sculptures almost
from the day Islam became entrenched in the area around the
ninth century."International
Herald Tribune 03/07/01

EARLY
DESTRUCTION OF ART: Egyptologists are debating whether to
restore a toppled 3,200-year-old 50-foot-high statue of Ramses
II or leave it on the ground in pieces where early Christian
monks felled and dismembered it to discourage idolatry. "The
face was attacked, as the early Christians often did, and traces
of hammering can be found all over the place, clearly showing
that the destruction was willed." Middle
East Times (Egypt) 03/07/01

THE ART OF TOMB
ROBBING: "When I first started out in this business,
many of the objects I handled crumbled to pieces. They were
too fragile. Now, I have a more scientific approach...The first
rule of tomb-robbing is never take anything home and never put
anything in your car. If the police find you in possession of
anything, you're in trouble... I love history. If I had studied,
I'd be a great archaeologist...I've taken my son out with me
three or four times, but he's not really interested in tomb-robbing.
There's no passion."The Art Newspaper 03/06/01

PROUD DESTROYER : Despite condemnation from around
the globe - even from their few allies in Pakistan and the UAE
- the Taliban are boasting of their destruction of irreplaceable
artwork. The Taliban leader broadcast a message throughout Afghanistan
Monday telling his countrymen to be proud of his decision to
destroy all the country’s pre-Islamic art and Buddhist sculpture.
"The Taliban maintains its action would help create the
world's purest Islamic state saying their mission to destroy
‘false idols’ will continue."CNN 3/05/01

FAITH-BASED VANDALISM: "Christians needn't be entirely
smug on the subject of destroying holy images. Iconoclasm (literally,
the breaking of images) was the name of an eighth- and ninth-century
movement in the Eastern church against the worship of holy pictures…
It's partly that, as Saul Bellow wrote, different minds inhabit
different centuries. If you take your beliefs seriously, and
are consistent in marrying deed to creed, then you may see,
with blinding clarity, the need to eliminate blasphemous inconsistencies."Time 3/05/01

AFGHAN
ART DESTROYED:"Taliban
Information Minister Quadratullah Jamal announced that, in apparent
defiance of international condemnation and pleas to preserve
the world's tallest standing Buddha statue and other ancient
artifacts, two-thirds of the country's statues had been smashed.
'They were easy to break apart and did not take much time,'
he said."Washington Post 03/04/01

WILLFUL
DESTRUCTION: Last Monday Afghanistan's Taliban leaders were
assuring a delegation that they had no intention of destroying
art treasures. By Thursday they were methodically obliterating
them. "They set about what was once Afghanistan's most
famous tourist attraction - two enormous statues of Buddha,
38 and 55 metres high, carved into a cliff-face. Using tanks
and rocket launchers they began to destroy the two works, which
had survived since the second century AD."The
Guardian 03/03/01

OUTSIDE OFFERS:
New York's Metropolitan Museum offers to buy the giant Buddhas
and other artifacts. Meanwhile, the trade of smuggled Afghani
artifacts has increased in recent weeks.The Times (London)
03/03/01

DESTROYING ART
IN AFGHANSTAN: Afghanistan's ruling Taliban run an oppressive
regime. Now the country's Ministry of Vice and Virtue has announced
plans to destroy every statue in the country, including the
world's tallest Buddha, almost 2,000 years old. Why? "Worshippers
might be tempted to pay homage to the idols, the Taliban's youthful
leaders have decided, even though Afghanistan is devoid of Buddhists."The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/01/01

A PLEA
FOR PRESERVATION: Unmoved by an international outcry, Taliban
troops began destroying artwork across Afghanistan Thursday,
including the demolition of 5th-century Buddhist
sculpture and precious pre-Islamic artifacts in Kabul’s national
museum. UNESCO and the Metropolitan Museum of Art are pressuring
the Taliban to give the artifacts to foreign museums. "They
are destroying statues that the entire world considers to be
masterpieces."New York Times
(AP) 3/01/01(one-time registration required for access)

AFGHAN
MUSEUM REOPENS: Though many of its treasures have been looted,
the National Museum of Afghanistan
has reopened after a decade of being closed during the civil
war. BBC 08/18/00

DESTRUCTION, NEGLECT
AND PILLAGE: Archeological treasures in Afghanistan
have been massively damaged and destroyed after years of civil
war, reports a historian and archeologist who has returned from
the region. The Art Newspaper 03/04/00

NO PEOPLE ALLOWED: The Taliban reopened
Afghanistan's National Art Gallery in Kabul this week, but no
art depicting human figures was allowed, in keeping with the
Taliban's strict interpretation of Islamic law. Times of India (AP) 02/18/00

AFGHANI
ART DESTROYED? Afghanistan's National Museum lost much of
its art during the country's civil war. But now reports say
the ruling Taliban have destroyed more than a dozen ancient
statues in the museum. "The Taleban minister of information
and culture has denied the reports but has refused to allow
journalists to enter the museum to check them. Reports started
to circulate last week that the Taleban were destroyed non-Islamic
artefacts in the museum, including statues of the Buddha dating
back nearly 2,000 years."BBC
02/12/01

LOOTERS
RUIN AFGHANI ART: International concern is growing for the
safety of artwork in Afghanistan. "The frescoes behind
the Great Buddha at Bamiyan are being hacked from the walls
by locals living near the site. Although it is doubtful whether
any reputable Western dealer would risk purchasing such well
recorded frescoes, these unique paintings have been irretrievably
damaged. They now risk disappearing forever into the hands of
individuals who have few scruples about owning such artefacts."The Art Newspaper 02/02/01